Solipsism: Chapter 2 (Patreon)

I was dead, I was dead, I was dead. Already dead, not alive. With nothing to lose. So why was I so terrified? 

I turned to see the woman beside me had already disappeared- of course she had- and quickly hurried to follow her lead. My moments of stunned, frozen terror had bought the creatures- cyclopes they were called- a few precious seconds of sprinting. One hundred metres was quite a way to move, but with legs as long and strong as theirs they seemed to be eating the ground up. Had a third of the space been covered already, or was it closer to half? 

Too much, either way.

My sprint was pitiable by comparison, but it was faster than a standstill and that was all I could hope for at the moment. My brain, thankfully, was quicker. 

Ahead was the forest, the streets weren’t big, and they weren’t dense, but if I darted between them they’d be more of an obstacle for the giants bounding at my heels than they were for me. I hoped. That wasn’t much in the way of a plan, but I got to work on it while I tried to think up something more substantial. I was dead already. The thought was a block of ice dropped down onto the burning embers of my panic. Why bother freaking out when I could relax, take it easy, and come up with a solution instead? 

That relaxation became a bit more fragile as the cyclopes got close enough for me to actually hear their footsteps behind me. 

Holy shit, I’m going to die.

There was something instinctual about that fear, powerful in a way that the clear, cerebral knowledge of my situation couldn’t hope to compete with. Gut was going against brain, and digesting it without the slightest struggle. That was all she wrote insofar as my plan-making went, and I soon gave in to the stupid urge to glance over my shoulder.

A dozen metres, maybe less. And by the look of the cyclops it would be on me in two or three seconds. It was beyond big, easily half again the height of most men and muscled like a wrecking ball made out of meat. That wrecking ball closed in on me fast, and the very sight turned my thoughts into a molten stew of frenzied panic. 

I couldn’t keep running, I’d be caught. Couldn’t dodge- that club was taller than me and the arm holding it was even longer. I couldn’t block, obviously, and losing consciousness seemed counter-productive to say the least. I didn’t really mean to do what I did, didn’t think about it. My body just moved on its own. The club came sidelong, my heels dug in, and I turned to meet it with hands raised.

Hands raised, like an idiot. Both palms caught the wooden cudgel and…It broke to pieces. 

Splinters hit me like a gale force wind, scratching my face and forcing me back as I cried out in shock. Eyes suddenly full of tears, I stared blinking and saw the cyclops was just as confused as me. Now that I stopped to look at it, I saw the thing really did have just the one eye, though it was bigger than my mouth and blinking more than both of mine combined. Confusion, even bafflement, was written across the monster’s features.

I couldn’t count on that lasting though. I moved forwards before I even knew what I was doing, throwing a punch with all my strength. The connection was off, not solid enough. The cyclops stumbled back before my blow had even finished landing, not going down, not even going close to down, but off-kilter for a precious few moments.

Then its friends were bringing up the rear. 

Before I could even blink, another arrow plinked into the nearest one’s neck. It didn’t go very deep, mind, but it was enough to pierce the leathery skin and draw a trickle of blood running down its warted flesh. The cyclops glared in the direction it came from, and while its friends slowed in confusion I took off running again. 

What the fuck was that?

I looked down at my hands, searching for…I don’t know what, perhaps a pair of shaped charges I’d somehow missed protruding outwards from my palms. Nothing like that stuck out to me of course. 

What the fuck was that?!

My foot snagged on something, clumsily overturning me onto the forest floor and leaving me rolling towards a painful stop. I scrambled back to my feet, spinning around just as I saw another club coming my way. The woman’s next arrow hit its wielder mid-swing, just as I raised my arms for a block. I’d stopped one impact, why not another? 

The glancing blow- a less clean connection than I’d managed on the first cyclops- felt like it had ripped my arm clean out of the socket, and bowled me completely off my feet. Gravity temporarily forgot all about me, then remembered with a painful crunch as the planet punched me in the face and did its best to insert as much soil in my nostrils as was possible. I rolled again- or at least I think I did- and finally came to a more clumsy stop than before. 

Everything hurt, except my head. My head was- oh, no, that hurt too. Even more actually, lovely. 

I groaned, rolled over onto my back and looked up to see a cyclops looming over me. It looked pleased, insofar as a thing with a face one might use to knock down walls could look anything other than terrifying. I must have actually pissed myself while falling before, because if I hadn’t I’d have felt my bladder empty then and there. 

The creature’s club came down, promising to empty my skull instead, and I winced as anticipation of the blow stole control of my body once again.

And once again, my unconscious response proved better than any I might have come up with deliberately. I was rolling- somehow I’d lurched off the ground entirely in fact. My body arced through the air and came to land down on the creature’s shoulders, where I remained for all of a second before both palms closed on its eyes.

There were many things I might have expected to come of my impromptu game of peak-a-boo. The sensation of both eyeballs messily bursting against my palms, though, was not one of them. The sensation actually repulsed me enough that I surrendered my grip on the cyclops and fell back, which was just as well because I’d have been crushed a moment later otherwise. It lost its footing, thudded down hard and lay there convulsing and thrashing in agony. 

I landed a moment later, and I landed hard. The cyclops’ shoulders were farther from the ground than my own head, and the dirt wasn’t nearly as soft as it looked. I practically detonated my way back to a standing position just as the next one closed. It seemed hesitant, unsure, taking its time before finally working up the courage to swing at me.

Scared of what I can do, eh big guy? Well if you have any ideas as to what that is, I’d love a hint.

Okay Gordon, thinking time. For real this time. I wasn’t tough- gravity had proven that for me quite a lot- which was confusing given how the club had exploded. I wasn’t really strong, either, or at least not in any way that worked with strength as I knew it. That one I’d shoved down had fallen before I’d even fully touched it…

Hold on, back up. It couldn’t really be that simple could it? 

I crouched as the cyclops’ club raised high, touched my hands to the ground and willed myself to move. I’d been doing a lot of willing lately, and a lot of failing in the attempts, but something about this one felt right. Rightly right, because I shot back like I’d taken the hit anyway- and with a lot less broken bones and pulverised organs than I might otherwise have enjoyed. It was as if some great invisible giant had plucked me off the ground and chucked me back, exerting some impossible force all centred on my hands. 

A lot of impossible force, mind. Maybe a bit much. I winced just before impact with the thicket, tearing through it and rolling along the ground as a messy, snarling, swearing tangle of confusion and pain. When I came up, though, I was laughing. More importantly, I was a good fifty feet away from the cyclops.

Oh, he was coming after me. Of course he was. But all the fear was gone now. I had magic powers, I had a sense for how to use them. Perhaps more importantly than anything else, I had finally gotten confirmation for my little hypothesis.

The world was nothing but an illusion, and nobody in it was real except me. This thing thought it could kill the main character of reality itself? I’d like to see it try. 

I leaned down, snatched a rock from the ground and pelted it out. My will was still there- my intent- but it didn’t seem to fly much better than normal. The next rock, this one thrown only a stride before the cyclops reached me, was better. I timed the intent to come just as it was exiting my fingers, combining physical motion with supernatural- magical, psychic, whatever it was- propulsion. 

With no way of actually measuring speed, I could only gauge its power vaguely. Somewhere past professional fastball, but short of bullet, is what I’d say the velocity ended up hitting. The cyclops might have given a more educated assessment, had the projectile not caved in its cheekbone. 

The cyclops was stunned for a moment, and I used that moment to close in and plant my hands against its torso. The will came easier with every use, and this one toppled, if anything, more violently than the last. I knelt down, hands wrapping around the joints of one knee and power surging up again. This time it was directed inwards from several directions at once, and rather than being shunted in any one of them the joint just surrendered to compression. 

I winced, finding the sound of collapsing bone and cartilage a bit too visceral for my taste. Even a fabricated injury of that sort hit a nerve to witness. 

After that, with the cyclops still shrieking on the floor, I finally looked up and found myself surprised by the sight of the others now lying still. Arrows jutted out of them, clearly fired closely and with a great deal of power behind each one.

Finally, the young woman was back again. She stepped out from behind the trees, staring at me like I’d just crawled out of some giant sphincter in the floor. 

“How did you do that?” She asked, voice a blend of awe and, I thought, disbelief. That was irony if I’d ever heard it.

I swept my gaze over the downed cyclopes, finding myself almost disappointed to realise the fight was over. I took my time responding, letting the feelings of everything wash over me. The residual fear, the thrill. The ecstasy of doing what I’d done. 

“I just willed the world to change, and it did.” I told her. And it was the truth. 

This world really was mine, I realised. And I really could do anything.